In this video, Martin Rostan, Executive Director of the EtherCAT Technology Group, introduces you to EtherCAT G and G10, the expansion of the well-known EtherCAT technology to gigabit at the physical layer and beyond. It is explained that EtherCAT’s unique functional principle of processing data on the fly extinguishes the need to adopt Gb/s for performance reasons as competitive protocols might do.
Nevertheless, there are some applications that have an extraordinarily high demand for bandwidth larger than 100 Mb/s. To meet this demand EtherCAT G and G10 are built on the functional principle of EtherCAT but move the available data rates up to 1 Gb/s and 10 Gb/s.
The technical basics of EtherCAT G and G10 are described and the new branch concept is presented. The latter contains EtherCAT Branch Controller (EBC) that enable the integration of 100 Mb/s devices and segments into an EtherCAT G/G10 network on the one hand and the parallel processing of multiple segments on the other. Various use cases underline the technology’s operational area.
Finally, the presentation is summed up by emphasizing that EtherCAT – even at 100 Mb/s – remains the fastest industrial Ethernet technology and that EtherCAT G is not a new version of EtherCAT but a downward compatible technology expansion which makes EtherCAT ready for the future.
More info about EtherCAT G: www.ethercat.org/ethercat-g